Kaya Henderson has Undermined her own Leadership

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Brent parent here. No one from Brent has been focused on Eliot-Hine and none will ever do so IMHO. In any event, the DME just took away the Brent "feed" to Eliot-Hine, as if this actually means anything when the school is significantly underenrolled and NO IB student has ever found a reason to attend. I can't see anyone from our cohort attending Jefferson either. We are continuing to assess options, including moving IB for Deal or Montgomery County after 4th Grade as Latin has become nearly impossible to get into and the Basis model may not be a good fit for our DC. We might have given Stuart-Hobson a shot but DCPS and the DME have no interest in finding a way to push that school to the next level by ensuring that it becomes a true neighborhood school. Truly disappointing.

So sorry that you're in this situation, which is terribly unfair. Yes, exactly, none in-boundary will ever do so, and no interest from DCPS. Their leadership only seems to care if Hardy becomes high-performing in the next 5-10 years. Meanwhile, DCM, Henderson, Mayor Gray and co. are glad to throw Brent, Tyler, Maury and even the new Van Ness under the bus. Obtuse, wrong, punishing and profoundly short-sighted. I don't see a way out for most high SES Hill families. BASIS surely won't be taking all comers by the start of school indefinitely - there are too many high SES Maury families whose kids are approaching 5th grade, and others in Brookland, Petworth, Columbia Heights etc. without a viable MS. Charles Allen's rhetoric on the subject doesn't inspire, and he probably won't be able to do a darn thing to change the dead-ended feeders before the next boundary revision (in 2020-2022?) anyway.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Thanks for the discussion about Jefferson. It's been very interesting.

Returning to the original topic of this thread, I just realized that Kaya Henderson actually aspires to be a preschool director. Instead of improving schools, she will wait for people with school-aged children to move out. Then when new people move in and have babies, she will offer them universal pre-K. Then, she'll just wait for them to move out when their children get older and start a whole cycle again.

Low ses kids do not count? Hardy does not count?

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Aaron Weiner of the Washington City Paper has an article looking at winners and losers in the recent DME school boundary process:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2014/08/27/zone-defense/

In response to a suggestion that some families hurt by the new school boundaries might move, DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson is quoted as saying:

"Even those who decide to leave, you know, this city is getting 1,000 new residents a month," she says. "And these residents will have babies."

This is outrageous. While Henderson is factually correct, retention of families that have invested in DCPS should be one of her top priorities. If her school system is causing people to leave the District, she is failing at her job. This raises a serious question as to whether Henderson is fit for the position she holds. Months ago, she publicly told a Council hearing that DCPS does not do middle schools well and suggested that maybe middle schools should be turned over to the charter sector. Now, she prefers babies over actual DCPS students. Is there anyone she actually wants to educate or is her goal to dismantle DCPS?

ergo, every chancellor of DCPS has been a failure for the last 60 years. Ditto for Alexandria City Public Schools. And almost every inner city system in the US

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not the PP, but my take on Jefferson...

Jefferson was a good school in the recent past largely due to a strong Principal who attracted/recruited strong students. The principal retired and the school's quality fell. Rhee asked Capitol Hill parents what they would like in a middle school. There was not a consensus opinion, but one request was for a stronger academic program at Jefferson. Rhee created Jefferson academy at the school in response to the ask, but it was less than the parents wanted, and it wasn't fully funded to make it successful. Jefferson has a new strong principal who has had some success with discipline and test scores, but still no/few middle class Capitol Hill kids attend Jefferson.

Much of what would be good for Unicorn Middle School would be good for Jefferson. The biggest necessary improvement would be more academic rigor. The school serves students with a wide range in academic preparedness, and offering a more demanding academic track for those who are able would help to attract more CH families. The physical campus for Jefferson is great, but the school is need of modernization.

Things related to Jefferson that may or may not be important factors for Unicorn Middle School, Stuart Hobson is nearby and attracts many of the potential students (to an inferior campus). An even bigger factor luring students away is Basis and to some degree Latin.

Thanks. Have the Jefferson folks had any discussion with Hardy parents or closely reviewed developments there? What you are facing is the classic "chicken and egg" dilemma that exists all over the city. It seems that Hardy has come closer than anyone to cracking the code on this. At a very high-level, as I understand things, this was basically an agreement among families to attend combined with an agreement with the principal to provide programming they desired.

I think part of the challenge is that there really aren't a lot of "Jefferson folks." They don't have an active PTA. The principal is pretty busy running the school and dealing with IB certification. There's some community involvement/support, but not a lot of folks at feeder schools who are really pushing for it to feel like a better option to middle class and/or white families. Amidon has a small PTA of mostly families with younger kids. There's enough work to do there without getting involved in the middle school too. Van Ness is similar--they're almost all parents of kids under age 5 and I think many are unsure what their plans will be for middle school. They are working on opening their school first (plus, when you read stuff like the GGE article and threads on this website, you might also get the feeling that some families in Navy Yard aren't very interested in their kids mingling with poor or black folks....). Tyler and Brent are totally disconnected from Jefferson geographically and ideologically. With Eliot-Hine having so many open seats, I think many of them are focusing there.

In contrast, many of the families currently at the school or hoping to go are understandably content with the school being a "hidden gem"--a place where mostly black, mostly low-income kids do pretty well. Jefferson is significantly better than Eliot-Hine on test scores, and is approaching Hardy on some metrics, especially for 8th graders (whose test scores are arguably the best reflection of what the school can do, while 6th grade scores are more influenced by elementary education) and if you compare apples-to-apples by comparing economically disadvantaged students at each school. Learndc has all this data. So not everyone agrees the school needs to be doing more to reach out and woo more families (especially families they fear might look down on them!).

One last point to note: the school is scheduled for substantial renovations starting Summer 2016. I don't trust DCPS on everything, but after seeing Dunbar, Cardozo, etc. I think they do a beautiful job on construction.

Brent parent here. No one from Brent has been focused on Eliot-Hine and none will ever do so IMHO. In any event, the DME just took away the Brent "feed" to Eliot-Hine, as if this actually means anything when the school is significantly underenrolled and NO IB student has ever found a reason to attend. I can't see anyone from our cohort attending Jefferson either. We are continuing to assess options, including moving IB for Deal or Montgomery County after 4th Grade as Latin has become nearly impossible to get into and the Basis model may not be a good fit for our DC. We might have given Stuart-Hobson a shot but DCPS and the DME have no interest in finding a way to push that school to the next level by ensuring that it becomes a true neighborhood school. Truly disappointing.

This reads like every option except one that creates a high ses enclave at SH is off the table for Brent parents. You did realize this is a city, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Aaron Weiner of the Washington City Paper has an article looking at winners and losers in the recent DME school boundary process:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2014/08/27/zone-defense/

In response to a suggestion that some families hurt by the new school boundaries might move, DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson is quoted as saying:

"Even those who decide to leave, you know, this city is getting 1,000 new residents a month," she says. "And these residents will have babies."

This is outrageous. While Henderson is factually correct, retention of families that have invested in DCPS should be one of her top priorities. If her school system is causing people to leave the District, she is failing at her job. This raises a serious question as to whether Henderson is fit for the position she holds. Months ago, she publicly told a Council hearing that DCPS does not do middle schools well and suggested that maybe middle schools should be turned over to the charter sector. Now, she prefers babies over actual DCPS students. Is there anyone she actually wants to educate or is her goal to dismantle DCPS?

ergo, every chancellor of DCPS has been a failure for the last 60 years. Ditto for Alexandria City Public Schools. And almost every inner city system in the US

I believe this chancellor and her immediate predecessor were the only ones who pledged to transform DCPS in to a high performing district - and the only ones to make sweeping changes to try to make it happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not the PP, but my take on Jefferson...

Jefferson was a good school in the recent past largely due to a strong Principal who attracted/recruited strong students. The principal retired and the school's quality fell. Rhee asked Capitol Hill parents what they would like in a middle school. There was not a consensus opinion, but one request was for a stronger academic program at Jefferson. Rhee created Jefferson academy at the school in response to the ask, but it was less than the parents wanted, and it wasn't fully funded to make it successful. Jefferson has a new strong principal who has had some success with discipline and test scores, but still no/few middle class Capitol Hill kids attend Jefferson.

Much of what would be good for Unicorn Middle School would be good for Jefferson. The biggest necessary improvement would be more academic rigor. The school serves students with a wide range in academic preparedness, and offering a more demanding academic track for those who are able would help to attract more CH families. The physical campus for Jefferson is great, but the school is need of modernization.

Things related to Jefferson that may or may not be important factors for Unicorn Middle School, Stuart Hobson is nearby and attracts many of the potential students (to an inferior campus). An even bigger factor luring students away is Basis and to some degree Latin.

Thanks. Have the Jefferson folks had any discussion with Hardy parents or closely reviewed developments there? What you are facing is the classic "chicken and egg" dilemma that exists all over the city. It seems that Hardy has come closer than anyone to cracking the code on this. At a very high-level, as I understand things, this was basically an agreement among families to attend combined with an agreement with the principal to provide programming they desired.

I think part of the challenge is that there really aren't a lot of "Jefferson folks." They don't have an active PTA. The principal is pretty busy running the school and dealing with IB certification. There's some community involvement/support, but not a lot of folks at feeder schools who are really pushing for it to feel like a better option to middle class and/or white families. Amidon has a small PTA of mostly families with younger kids. There's enough work to do there without getting involved in the middle school too. Van Ness is similar--they're almost all parents of kids under age 5 and I think many are unsure what their plans will be for middle school. They are working on opening their school first (plus, when you read stuff like the GGE article and threads on this website, you might also get the feeling that some families in Navy Yard aren't very interested in their kids mingling with poor or black folks....). Tyler and Brent are totally disconnected from Jefferson geographically and ideologically. With Eliot-Hine having so many open seats, I think many of them are focusing there.

In contrast, many of the families currently at the school or hoping to go are understandably content with the school being a "hidden gem"--a place where mostly black, mostly low-income kids do pretty well. Jefferson is significantly better than Eliot-Hine on test scores, and is approaching Hardy on some metrics, especially for 8th graders (whose test scores are arguably the best reflection of what the school can do, while 6th grade scores are more influenced by elementary education) and if you compare apples-to-apples by comparing economically disadvantaged students at each school. Learndc has all this data. So not everyone agrees the school needs to be doing more to reach out and woo more families (especially families they fear might look down on them!).

One last point to note: the school is scheduled for substantial renovations starting Summer 2016. I don't trust DCPS on everything, but after seeing Dunbar, Cardozo, etc. I think they do a beautiful job on construction.

Brent parent here. No one from Brent has been focused on Eliot-Hine and none will ever do so IMHO. In any event, the DME just took away the Brent "feed" to Eliot-Hine, as if this actually means anything when the school is significantly underenrolled and NO IB student has ever found a reason to attend. I can't see anyone from our cohort attending Jefferson either. We are continuing to assess options, including moving IB for Deal or Montgomery County after 4th Grade as Latin has become nearly impossible to get into and the Basis model may not be a good fit for our DC. We might have given Stuart-Hobson a shot but DCPS and the DME have no interest in finding a way to push that school to the next level by ensuring that it becomes a true neighborhood school. Truly disappointing.

This reads like every option except one that creates a high ses enclave at SH is off the table for Brent parents. You did realize this is a city, right?

Jefferson's good at what they do - leave them to it. Make EH test-in, and it becomes Deal II overnight. And if they won't do that, they might as well throw in the towel let a charter middle move in to the hill. Remember ya'll, in Ms. Henderson's own words: "Charters do middle school well." Something's got to give.

[Anonymous]

What's most likely to give is the determination of many high SES families to stay on the Hill past elementary, at least once BASIS stops making it through their WLs by September. DCPS clearly doesn't give a damn if we stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's most likely to give is the determination of many high SES families to stay on the Hill past elementary, at least once BASIS stops making it through their WLs by September. DCPS clearly doesn't give a damn if we stay.

so maybe Henerson's gaffes are meant to urge CH parents into charters?

Maybe it's time to confront her directly on these issues. "have you given up on a CH middle school? Are you hoping for a charter to come in? Do you hope to work for the charter system when you leave DCPS? Do you care whether current residents stay in the district or are you waiting for a new batch of babies? How does this any of this fit with being chancellor of DCPS?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's most likely to give is the determination of many high SES families to stay on the Hill past elementary, at least once BASIS stops making it through their WLs by September. DCPS clearly doesn't give a damn if we stay.

so maybe Henerson's gaffes are meant to urge CH parents into charters?

Maybe it's time to confront her directly on these issues. "have you given up on a CH middle school? Are you hoping for a charter to come in? Do you hope to work for the charter system when you leave DCPS? Do you care whether current residents stay in the district or are you waiting for a new batch of babies? How does this any of this fit with being chancellor of DCPS?"

Isn't there also a question of lack of unity among high-SES people on Capitol Hill? I read elsewhere on DCUM that there is/was a vocal group of parents who are more liberal/in favor of diversity and they oppose this idea of consolidating high-SES in one school. And they have been politically successful? Is this true or not? If it's true then you may need to resolve this disagreement within the community before you can get govt to change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not the PP, but my take on Jefferson...

Jefferson was a good school in the recent past largely due to a strong Principal who attracted/recruited strong students. The principal retired and the school's quality fell. Rhee asked Capitol Hill parents what they would like in a middle school. There was not a consensus opinion, but one request was for a stronger academic program at Jefferson. Rhee created Jefferson academy at the school in response to the ask, but it was less than the parents wanted, and it wasn't fully funded to make it successful. Jefferson has a new strong principal who has had some success with discipline and test scores, but still no/few middle class Capitol Hill kids attend Jefferson.

Much of what would be good for Unicorn Middle School would be good for Jefferson. The biggest necessary improvement would be more academic rigor. The school serves students with a wide range in academic preparedness, and offering a more demanding academic track for those who are able would help to attract more CH families. The physical campus for Jefferson is great, but the school is need of modernization.

Things related to Jefferson that may or may not be important factors for Unicorn Middle School, Stuart Hobson is nearby and attracts many of the potential students (to an inferior campus). An even bigger factor luring students away is Basis and to some degree Latin.

Thanks. Have the Jefferson folks had any discussion with Hardy parents or closely reviewed developments there? What you are facing is the classic "chicken and egg" dilemma that exists all over the city. It seems that Hardy has come closer than anyone to cracking the code on this. At a very high-level, as I understand things, this was basically an agreement among families to attend combined with an agreement with the principal to provide programming they desired.

I think part of the challenge is that there really aren't a lot of "Jefferson folks." They don't have an active PTA. The principal is pretty busy running the school and dealing with IB certification. There's some community involvement/support, but not a lot of folks at feeder schools who are really pushing for it to feel like a better option to middle class and/or white families. Amidon has a small PTA of mostly families with younger kids. There's enough work to do there without getting involved in the middle school too. Van Ness is similar--they're almost all parents of kids under age 5 and I think many are unsure what their plans will be for middle school. They are working on opening their school first (plus, when you read stuff like the GGE article and threads on this website, you might also get the feeling that some families in Navy Yard aren't very interested in their kids mingling with poor or black folks....). Tyler and Brent are totally disconnected from Jefferson geographically and ideologically. With Eliot-Hine having so many open seats, I think many of them are focusing there.

In contrast, many of the families currently at the school or hoping to go are understandably content with the school being a "hidden gem"--a place where mostly black, mostly low-income kids do pretty well. Jefferson is significantly better than Eliot-Hine on test scores, and is approaching Hardy on some metrics, especially for 8th graders (whose test scores are arguably the best reflection of what the school can do, while 6th grade scores are more influenced by elementary education) and if you compare apples-to-apples by comparing economically disadvantaged students at each school. Learndc has all this data. So not everyone agrees the school needs to be doing more to reach out and woo more families (especially families they fear might look down on them!).

One last point to note: the school is scheduled for substantial renovations starting Summer 2016. I don't trust DCPS on everything, but after seeing Dunbar, Cardozo, etc. I think they do a beautiful job on construction.

Brent parent here. No one from Brent has been focused on Eliot-Hine and none will ever do so IMHO. In any event, the DME just took away the Brent "feed" to Eliot-Hine, as if this actually means anything when the school is significantly underenrolled and NO IB student has ever found a reason to attend. I can't see anyone from our cohort attending Jefferson either. We are continuing to assess options, including moving IB for Deal or Montgomery County after 4th Grade as Latin has become nearly impossible to get into and the Basis model may not be a good fit for our DC. We might have given Stuart-Hobson a shot but DCPS and the DME have no interest in finding a way to push that school to the next level by ensuring that it becomes a true neighborhood school. Truly disappointing.

This reads like every option except one that creates a high ses enclave at SH is off the table for Brent parents. You did realize this is a city, right?

No need to be obtuse. This is a city, and one where the school system has been a failure for decades. I don't think Brent parents are looking for a public school full of wealthy people. They are looking for a school where high level teaching and learning takes place. That is a factor of academically well prepared students, functional leadership and talented teachers. Without all three, parents of academically on-target students won't go there.

In a place where the elementary schools are still trying to get their feet under them academically and there is no forward thinking by our superintendents and program planners as well as promised budgets and timelines that don't come through--then of course it makes sense to take care of at least a few of those factors by consolidating strong students in one place. Not excluding others, but creating a strong core to build off of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's most likely to give is the determination of many high SES families to stay on the Hill past elementary, at least once BASIS stops making it through their WLs by September. DCPS clearly doesn't give a damn if we stay.

so maybe Henerson's gaffes are meant to urge CH parents into charters?

Maybe it's time to confront her directly on these issues. "have you given up on a CH middle school? Are you hoping for a charter to come in? Do you hope to work for the charter system when you leave DCPS? Do you care whether current residents stay in the district or are you waiting for a new batch of babies? How does this any of this fit with being chancellor of DCPS?"

Isn't there also a question of lack of unity among high-SES people on Capitol Hill? I read elsewhere on DCUM that there is/was a vocal group of parents who are more liberal/in favor of diversity and they oppose this idea of consolidating high-SES in one school. And they have been politically successful? Is this true or not? If it's true then you may need to resolve this disagreement within the community before you can get govt to change.

I think everyone is in favor of diversity but for most of us, it doesn't trump a good education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's most likely to give is the determination of many high SES families to stay on the Hill past elementary, at least once BASIS stops making it through their WLs by September. DCPS clearly doesn't give a damn if we stay.

so maybe Henerson's gaffes are meant to urge CH parents into charters?

Maybe it's time to confront her directly on these issues. "have you given up on a CH middle school? Are you hoping for a charter to come in? Do you hope to work for the charter system when you leave DCPS? Do you care whether current residents stay in the district or are you waiting for a new batch of babies? How does this any of this fit with being chancellor of DCPS?"

Isn't there also a question of lack of unity among high-SES people on Capitol Hill? I read elsewhere on DCUM that there is/was a vocal group of parents who are more liberal/in favor of diversity and they oppose this idea of consolidating high-SES in one school. And they have been politically successful? Is this true or not? If it's true then you may need to resolve this disagreement within the community before you can get govt to change.

I think everyone is in favor of diversity but for most of us, it doesn't trump a good education

Couldn't agree more. Diversity may be the icing on the cake, but you have to have a cake -- meaning a good, rigorous, high-quality education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's most likely to give is the determination of many high SES families to stay on the Hill past elementary, at least once BASIS stops making it through their WLs by September. DCPS clearly doesn't give a damn if we stay.

so maybe Henerson's gaffes are meant to urge CH parents into charters?

Maybe it's time to confront her directly on these issues. "have you given up on a CH middle school? Are you hoping for a charter to come in? Do you hope to work for the charter system when you leave DCPS? Do you care whether current residents stay in the district or are you waiting for a new batch of babies? How does this any of this fit with being chancellor of DCPS?"

Isn't there also a question of lack of unity among high-SES people on Capitol Hill? I read elsewhere on DCUM that there is/was a vocal group of parents who are more liberal/in favor of diversity and they oppose this idea of consolidating high-SES in one school. And they have been politically successful? Is this true or not? If it's true then you may need to resolve this disagreement within the community before you can get govt to change.

Well, there is this. Consolidation or test-in is something that 90% of hill parents would rejoice over, but the old gaurd, namely CHPSO, is pretty crunchy about it and it's hard to nave a candid, realistic conversation about all of this with them in the room. It's also a tough thing to discuss in-person, without sounding like a total self-serving asshole. Which is unfortunate, because all it means is the folks at Maury are "committed" and SH "is a perfectly fine option" until they lottery out, or move, or find ANY OTHER option. It'll be interesting to see what actually happens but my money is on no high-SES kids landing at Hine within the next 5 years, and same for Jefferson. SH will be a catch all for the kids that don't get in elsewhere, and in 6 years it won't have the capacity to take it all on. Even then, the OOB kids feeding up from JO and LT will continue to make it a school that doesn't completely "flip." Which may be good or bad, but their size alone limits he kind of programming they can offer.

It's tough, I don't want to push kids out, I want them to have access to great schools and programming as well, but no one in their right mind is going to send their kid off to be one of the few in class that can read at grade level... It's just not going to happen and I'm so tired of this "dig in and make it work" crap that people toss around. If you made EH a test-in and gave it a principal that wanted the parents' support in creating world class programming, it would have all the resources and motivation thrown behind it you can imagine. And guess what, many low SES kids would benefit.

[Anonymous]

^^^ I am afraid you are behind the times on Eliot-Hine. I take your main point: that Eliot Hine is a ways off from being a first choice of many middle class families ( black OR white ). BUT please recognize that at least a few families from Maury who would fit that description already have their children at EH for the second year and the principal is working with inboundary families to shape the program and do outreach at its feeder schools. Not sure where it stands now, but EH is also on its way to International Baccalaureate accreditation. Pieces are slowly coming into place. The puzzle is still unfinished and it may never be the Deal II we all dream of. But it also isn't fair to write it off as completely as pp did above

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I am afraid you are behind the times on Eliot-Hine. I take your main point: that Eliot Hine is a ways off from being a first choice of many middle class families ( black OR white ). BUT please recognize that at least a few families from Maury who would fit that description already have their children at EH for the second year and the principal is working with inboundary families to shape the program and do outreach at its feeder schools. Not sure where it stands now, but EH is also on its way to International Baccalaureate accreditation. Pieces are slowly coming into place. The puzzle is still unfinished and it may never be the Deal II we all dream of. But it also isn't fair to write it off as completely as pp did above

Thanks CHPSPO rep. How many families made the jump again? That are high-SES...Can you quantify "a few" for me?